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It's not legal to print ten-year-olds in 2D, much less 3D. Joking aside, while a cool idea, I don't think it's really aimed at the right market. I wouldn't min
by donw 15y ago
It's not legal to print ten-year-olds in 2D, much less 3D.
Joking aside, while a cool idea, I don't think it's really aimed at the right market. I wouldn't mind having a cheap 3D printer for quick prototyping, but for children, the physical experience of molding and shaping a new creation is an important part of their mental and physical development.
At ten years old, kids' brains are still locking down key motor and spatial reasoning skills.
This seems like a device more suitable for teenagers-and-up.
- jamesbritt 15y agoWe need the inverse: place some real object in a box and get back 3D specs to reproduce. Then kids (that includes all of us, too) can make stuff in Play-doh then make more durable copies.
- Jach 15y agoI'm pretty sure we've had 3D scanners since before 3D printers, but I don't recall off-hand how cheap they are. But great idea for a kids application with playdough.
- koffiezet 15y agoYou should be able to do this pretty cheaply with pattern-lights, a cheap webcam and some intelligent software?
- Jach 15y agoYeah, you're right. Look at what people can do with just two Kinects; all you really need is enough pictures of the object from different surrounding points to construct a 3D representation that looks alright.
- jamesbritt 15y agoDamn good point. Even one kinect and a rotating platform could work. It could plausibly be built for around $200.00. Makes me suspect someone has already hacked one into existence ...
- tristanstraub 15y agoI'm no expert, but I gave my 4 year old nephew a set of GeoMag, and he was copying stuff from the manual (he can't read yet, but I can see the pictures), and doing a reasonably good job of it. I was programming at 9, and using animation tools around the same age (very simple stuff). Kids are really good at specialising, so if they find 3d modelling interesting, they'll learn it, especially with such a simple tool like 3Dtin. I think we shouldn't underestimate what each successive generation is capable of doing, riding on the wave of the previous generation.